


Xion: A Walk at Twilight

by Jules2390



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe--Kingdom Hearts II, But sometimes canon compliant, F/F, F/M, Game: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Gen, More drama and adventure than romance, Multi, Possible lore spoilers for later Kingdom Hearts games, What if? Xion beat Roxas in 358/2 Days, but maybe a little romance too, hella angst, non-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2020-02-15 18:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18675328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules2390/pseuds/Jules2390
Summary: "I'm sorry, Riku," Xion said. "I'm not going back."Xion thought she knew how to make things better. But now Roxas is gone, the Organization is on her tail, and everything is in shambles. A melancholy, plot-heavy story exploring a world where Xion, not Roxas, won the fight at the end of 358/2 Days. But she didn't mean to. And now she has to figure out how to help Sora, Roxas, and herself out of a mess that keeps getting worse and worse.





	1. A Divergent Path

Above the darkened city, there were no stars in the sky. Thunder clapped, and rain fell in flat sheets. The rain gathered in puddles on the cobbled streets, reflecting a heart-shaped moon back at itself. The wind was still, and lifeless, and for all the fury of the storm the whole city had the stifling air of a tomb. It smelled like mold.

Her hood swept over her head, Xion walked through the rain. It always rained here, in ugly bursts, like a shout torn repeatedly from a wounded throat. Xion didn’t believe she had a heart with which to feel, but if she did, she’d freely admit she hated this world. She hated its rain, and its empty buildings stretching out into forever. She hated what it had taken from her. She was looking forward to taking it back.

Or she would be. If she had a heart. If she was anything, at all.

There was a skyscraper near the middle of the city. Or what felt like the middle, anyway. A strange fact about the dark city: no matter where you wandered on its desolate streets, you always ended up here. A skyscraper, spotlights shining on its glass face, steps leading up to a door that never opened. Blank television screens adorned the exterior at the top floors, humming with white light and static electricity.

Xion paused, near the foot of this strange building. It had been nearly two days. She was ready for what she had to do. From here, a thin, winding road led to a precipice, above which, suspended in nothingness, rested a castle. The home of Organization XIII. Where Xion had to go. She could have simply travelled straight there, through the darkness, but this seemed better, somehow. And if they were going to try and stop her, she’d rather they do it here, outside, than in the thin labyrinthine passageways of the castle.

But there was no resistance. Nothing but the shadows. She could feel them, when they started to rise up from the ground. Living in the world between had given Xion a feel for the movement of light and darkness, a sort of sense for ripples in its current. She could almost smell the shadows as they rose, impossibly, from the wet ground. Their presence itched on her skin, her teeth.

Heartless. About four feet tall, these creatures had beady yellow eyes and no other discernible features. Just bipedal monsters, with sharp claws and two antenna twitching against the rain.

 _They’re here for me._ Xion sighed. _That’s what I was told, right? They want the Keyblade. They’re afraid of it._

Xion lifted her gloved hands into the air, and when they came back down they weren’t empty. In each one there was a Keyblade, crackling with power. A black one in her right hand, its body shaped as if it had been hewn from massive chains. _Oblivion._ A white one in her left, with two thin shafts of metal as the blade, attached to a head that looked like a crystalline star. _Oathkeeper._

The girl in the black coat took a deep breath, her muscles tensed. The Heartless gathered around her in a circle, more and more emerging from the ground around her. They moved to attack, all claws and unreal flesh. She moved first. She sprang to one side and then the other, swinging her Keyblades in wide arcs, slicing through the Heartless like they were empty air. While her weapons did not appear sharp, or even exceptionally dangerous, against these creatures they were devastating. Each cut caused a shadow to disappear in a cloud of wispy energy, shadowflesh fading away into nothing.

With two Keyblades in her hands, Xion moved with the grace of a dancer and the precision of a lifelong warrior. She twirled and dodged as the shadows attempted to cut her with their claws and pin her under their own bodies. The creatures jumped, and dove, and slashed at air. She kept moving, kept cutting, and shadows died. White energy crackled from her blades, pure light. She had never felt more powerful. It would have been intoxicating, if she didn’t remember where her new power came from.

All that power, though, was matched by the limitless reserves of the Heartless. The more she cut down, the more appeared, until the whole square was full of them, the concrete replaced by a sea of bobbing, antennaed heads. Xion jumped, flipping backward, using her airtime to gain distance from the creatures. If she wasn’t quick, she knew they would overwhelm her. She threw Oblivion, its blade catching the moonlight as it flew spinning through the air, catching the Heartless that jumped out at her.

Xion jumped once more and landed at the foot of the skyscraper at the center of the square. As she did so, her Keyblade arced back toward her, its mystical connection to her drawing it back around like a boomerang. _Gotta get away._ She jumped straight at the building, spinning in midair, catching the Keyblade as it reached her. With nowhere else to go, her feet hit the side of the building, and, defying gravity, she stuck to it, running toward the sky on its rainslick windows. _Up._

It was only then, running straight up, with a half second to collect herself before the Heartless started trying to jump after her, that Xion realized she was being watched. A man in a black coat stood on top of the tower. His hood was lowered, and thick gray hair drifted over a young, serene face. He wore a blindfold, but even so she could sense his gaze on her, steely, curious.

 _Riku._ A week ago, Xion might have called him a friend. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

She kept running, her eyes on Riku. He walked to the edge of the building’s roof—strange, jagged bits of decoration surrounding him, glittering screens immediately beneath—and dove.

As the falling boy approached from above, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Xion’s focus went hazy, and she felt Riku’s presence next to her as something palpable. A warmth, touching her, sparking feelings and memories that were unfamiliar but still, somehow, clearly hers. _Two boys on a beach, pretending to fight their friends. One of them too proud, or too shy, to ask for the help he needed. The other standing next to him, their backs touching. ”You need a hand, Sora?”_

Then Xion did something that surprised her. She threw Riku one of her Keyblades.

_Wait, why did I--?_

He caught it deftly, as if he had been expecting it. They passed each other in the air, and Riku gracefully landed on the ground, his weapon—Oblivion—raised, ready to fight. Xion reached the top of the building, touching down on the roof, only to find herself greeted by more Heartless. Naturally. She cut them down, and then jumped herself, falling fast and hard until she landed next to Riku, her back to him, a small oasis against a sea of darkness.

The Heartless, expecting to face one Keyblade wielder, didn’t seem to know what to do with the sudden appearance of two. The shadows hesitated, unsure which of the fighters to prioritize, and in that moment of hesitation Xion and Riku eradicated them, weaving through the crowds with their swords until there was nothing left in the square but rain and black mist.

Standing on opposite sides of the square, Xion and Riku turned to face each other. Riku made no gesture to return the Keyblade, and Xion none to take it back. They just stood, uneasily, each of them uncertain what move the other was about to make.

Riku spoke first. “Where’s Roxas?”

“Gone,” Xion said. Her grip on her Keyblade got tighter, so tight it hurt.

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Xion said. She fought to keep as much emotion out of her voice as she could, but even then, she heard it starting to crack. “The Organization—Xemnas set us up.”

“Xemnas…” Riku frowned like he hadn’t heard the name before. Maybe he hadn’t. “Why didn’t you come to us?”

“I’m sorry, Riku,” she said. “But I’m not going back.”

He tensed. “You have to. If you don’t, Sora won’t ever--“

“No.” _Riku. He’s not my friend. Not really. He’s Sora’s._ “I have things I have to do.”

_And I’m just a missing piece._

Riku slowly raised his Keyblade, not quite to a fighting stance, but as if he was thinking about it. “Do you have some kind of plan?”

Xion gripped Oathkeeper in both hands, her whole body tight.

“I’m going to set Kingdom Hearts free,” she said. “I’m going to restore Roxas. I’m going to get my _life_ back.”

“If you try to make contact with Kingdom Hearts, the last thing you’ll get is your life back! The Organization will destroy you!”

“I have to try.”

“I can’t let you destroy yourself, Xion. You’re coming back with me, whether you like it or not.”

“I am SO TIRED of people SAYING THAT TO ME! _I’ve had enough!_ ”

Before Xion even realized it, she was charging. Their Keyblades met, light and dark, Oathkeeper and Oblivion, in the endless night.

Xion had always found fighting to be almost automatic for her. A reflex, skills and power borrowed from someone else’s memories. Normally, she didn’t have to really think about it. She just moved. Riku was different. They had fought before, and now, like then, Riku was ferocious, fast and precise. He lashed out with quick, careful slashes of his Keyblade, each one shocking powerful. He quickly pushed her back, his weapon clanging against hers, sparks and pure magical energy lancing out from their blades.

Xion was stronger than she used to be, though. The faster Riku came at her, the faster she pushed herself to move, and soon she was taking as much ground as she was giving. The two danced around the empty plaza. Intermittent rain bounced off their coats, their swords. Stuck to their hair.

Xion was fighting for her friend. For a chance to save him, and a chance to atone. Riku was fighting for the same thing.

“NO!” Xion cried. Xion locked her Keyblade with Riku’s and pushed hard, shoving him back on his heels, the boy sliding away on the slick concrete. “I won’t lose to you again!”

Instead of advancing, Riku smirked. “Come on, Sora. Giving up already? I thought you were stronger than that.”

Xion’s eyes widened, and she almost cracked a smile. “Get real! Look at which one of us is winning!”

The second she said it, she felt ill. For a second, the world spun, and she hesitated, one hand letting go of her Keyblade to gently touch her wet face. That wasn’t… Who?

Riku smiled even wider, though the grin was now more somber than taunting. “You really are a part of Sora, huh?”

She gritted her teeth and advanced. She knew she was a part of Sora. And Roxas was a part of her, now. She didn’t need to be reminded of it. “Jerk!”

Xion leapt, spun, and struck at Riku with her key, light erupting from her weapon as she did. The power of the blow was enough to knock Oblivion out of Riku’s hand. He went backpedaling, and she advanced, slashing at his chest.

A hasty cross-hand guard is the only thing that kept Xion from slicing Riku’s chest open. He slammed against the building behind him with a crushing thud and dropped to his knees. Sora’s best friend breathed heavy, clutching one of his wrists tenderly.

Xion saw blood on the ground, but she was beyond caring. She twitched her left hand, and Oblivion reappeared in it, leaving Riku seemingly unarmed.

“Fine,” Riku said, through thick gasps of air. He shuddered to his feet. “I won’t underestimate you any more, Xion. I’m not going to hold back. I’ll release the dark power in my heart, even if it changes me forever.”

Then, in a deft, understated gesture, Riku took his blindfold off. Immediately, he was engulfed in a vortex of purple and black energy that burst from the ground beneath him. Xion could sense darkness coalescing around Riku. The power seemed to be coming from both inside Riku and outside of him, as if he was exerting some magnetic force, manipulating all the dark power he could touch.

When the vortex faded away, Riku was different. He was taller, with longer hair and a more arch, angular face. He looked at her with two amber eyes as he floated slightly off the ground, his arms crossed. _Another memory: a cruel man, an evil spirit appearing in the guise of a friend. A Keyblade swinging against a blade of simple dark. A keyhole._

Before Xion could properly take him in, this new Riku was moving, advancing so fast that she would have sworn he turned invisible. A massive creature like a Heartless appeared behind Riku, and it grabbed her, massive muscular arms squeezing her in hands the size of her whole torso. 

All at once, Xion could feel the fight slipping away from her. She couldn’t breathe, could barely see. Everything went fuzzy. Stars were appearing at the edge of her vision, and they were quickly turning into entire galaxies of emptiness. 

She could hardly think, barely knew who she was. All she knew was that it hurt. Everything hurt, and that pain echoed in somewhere deep inside of her, somewhere where her heart should have been. She saw a boy with blonde hair and sad eyes, and another with brown hair and an unending grin. She saw eternal sunset. It hurt. It hurt. It was all too much. 

Xion screamed, and her body answered her, a maelstrom of light pouring forth from her core. It was her pain, weaponized as the power of the Keybearer. The boy who she looked like, who she remembered, but who she wasn’t. His power seared the dark city, cutting through Riku’s creature, cutting through everything. Xion screamed, and screamed, and screamed until her throat ran ragged and gave out inside of her. She screamed until, if just for a second, all the hurt was gone. 

It was a few moments before Xion came to herself again. When she knew her own name again, she found herself on one knee in the middle of the plaza, clutching her chest. Otherwise, she was fine, albeit out of breath. At the other end of the plaza, Riku—the changed Riku, the one who reminded her of someone whose name she couldn’t quite place—lay prone, barely conscious, but alive. 

When Riku came to himself again, a moment after Xion, the first thing he registered was a Keyblade, inches from his nose. 

Xion said, “Don’t follow me.” 

He didn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter is mostly an exercise in introducing the premise and remixing the "Deep Dive" sequence with Xion in place of Roxas. Much larger changes to canon are coming very, very soon, and things are not going to go the way they did in Kingdom Hearts 2. My read, by the by, on why this sequence goes differently here is that Xion, moreso than Roxas ever did, has a deep awareness of her own pain. And that, in this moment, is power.
> 
> This fic is a love letter to Xion, a fascinating, sad character who I thought deserved a spotlight she never quite got. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Listening suggestion for Chapter One is, of course, "Another Side, Another Story" by Yoko Shimomura.


	2. Deep Dive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion goes missing, and Riku has to figure out what to do next.

Riku woke with a start, a hand clutching his chest. He didn’t know where he was. He remembered a light, searing pain, and—

“Xion!”

He sat up bolt straight, and was surprised when blankets fell off his shoulders. He was in a bed. Riku looked around. The room was in a small, sparsely decorated room. A bookshelf with dusty books on it. A wooden table and a wooden chair across from the door.

It was a room Riku recognized. _Twilight Town,_ he reminded himself. It was connected to DiZ’s bizarre underground lab, one of a handful of empty rooms off the main chambers that the man had converted into spare bedrooms for whatever strays he took in. There was one for Riku, one for Namine, and one that wasn’t occupied. Riku didn’t know where DiZ slept.

He rose from the bed slowly, checking his body for wounds. There weren’t any. Probably magic’s doing. How had he gotten back here? Riku had no memory of anything behind Xion’s footsteps in the rain, walking away from him and toward the castle. But her voice, full of conviction and pain, echoed in his ears as clearly as if he was hearing it now.

Riku found his black coat on the floor. He put it on, then cinched the hood over his face. He was grateful the room didn’t have any mirrors. He had no interest in looking at himself. Not when someone else was going to look back.

A brisk walk took Riku from the bedroom—he never thought of it as “his”—to the computer room, where DiZ sat huddled over a complex, mulit-monitored computer. The white light of its screens flickered on the blue walls.

“Ah. I see you are awake,” DiZ said. “Perhaps next time you fight a member of the Organization, you will return conscious.” Beneath the red bandages that concealed his face, DiZ smiled. Riku never knew if DiZ was laughing at him, or trying to bully him. He suspected DiZ didn’t know himself.

“You brought me back here?” Riku asked, approaching the computer. The act of speaking was almost enough to bring him to a complete stop. The voice he heard come out of his own mouth, low and clinical, wasn’t his. It was a hell of an incentive to be brief.

“I did,” DiZ said. He didn’t look away from the computer, and in fact continued typing something as Riku stood behind him.

“And where’s Xion?”

“You mean that blasted puppet? I do not know. I know she entered the Organization’s castle after she fought you, but after that, I cannot say. My awareness does not extend into their stronghold.”

“If she’s alive, I have to help her,” Riku said, walking away and raising his hand to the wall, dark power flowing through it.

“If it has not been destroyed, you need to bring it here.”

Riku didn’t bother to answer. A dark corridor formed on the wall, and he walked through it—into the wall-to-wall white of Namine’s room. The blonde girl sat at the table, drawing with crayons. He could see a girl with black hair on the drawing she was working on.

“She’s okay,” Namine said, before Riku could get a word out of his own. “She’s not been destroyed, anyway.”

Riku sat in the chair opposite hers. “Do you know where she is? Or what happened to her?”

Namine looked up at Riku with sad eyes. It was odd; she looked at him as if she had barely noticed that he had changed. She recognized him instantly. Riku didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I don’t,” she said. She put down her crayon and the notebook she was drawing in. “It’s strange, I can feel her, but it’s as if from a great distance away. It’s… fuzzy. I’ll keep trying, but it’s like the chains connecting her to Sora have been stretched so far that I can’t find any memories to latch onto to find her with. I don’t know if I’ll be much help.”

“That’s okay,” Riku said. “I’ll find her.” He looked out the window across the room, at the low trickle of light from Twilight Town’s eternal sunset. After his long sleep, the light almost stung. Like he belonged in the dark.

After a quiet moment, he stood to leave, and summoned another dark corridor.

“Riku, are you sure you’re okay to go so soon?” Namine asked. “You were unconscious for two days. You should rest. Eat something.”

But Riku already stood at the edge of the dark portal, the black energy licking at his coattails. He shook his head. “I have to find out what happened to her. She’s our only chance of getting Sora back.”

Before Namine could say anything, he walked through the portal, and Twilight Town was gone.

~*~

Riku spent the next day hunting. He crept through the shadows and rooftops of the Dark City, watching for movement, for any sign of the Organization’s activities, their comings and goings. He extended his senses—the peculiar ability to smell darkness that he had gained from Ansem—and tried to pinpoint—well, anyone. Xion, or another Organization member, or anything that could be a clue as to what happened in this world after he lost. Even a lesser Nobody could be useful. Riku was certain if he could capture a Dusk, DiZ could find a way to get information out of it.

The mysterious man was good at things like that.

But there was nothing. The rain had stopped, and the endless city was cold and still. Not even the Heartless seemed to be around. After hours of pointless wandering, Riku found himself crouched on a rooftop, just examining the Organization’s massive, sheer gray castle. Their stronghold.

It was poised over an open pit, the place where the world fell away into nothing. The castle itself was massive, towering into the skyline, nearly obscuring the heart-shaped moon above it. It was well defended, Riku knew. Within it, he couldn’t sense anything in particular. But he felt power, a foreboding presence that made it difficult to even imagine himself using the darkness to get inside. It was a massive, floating threat.

Riku knew that, whatever had happened in that castle, Xion hadn’t succeeded in her quest to free Kingdom Hearts. The castle’s austere presence, and the moon above it, both stood as proof of that. But if she failed, how was she still alive? Riku knew that the Organization wanted the power of the Keyblade. Had they spared her in the hopes of getting her to work for them again?

If that were the case, Namine should have been able to sense her. Whatever had happened to Xion, she wasn’t in this world anymore. And so he waited. He’d wait as long as he had to, ignoring the aching in his exhausted core and the discomfort lingering in his unfamiliar limbs. Xion was the only connection to his best friend he had left. If she disappeared, Sora would probably never wake up. And that wasn’t going to happen. 

 

~*~

It was morning when Axel stepped out of a dark corridor into the streets of the Dark City. Or, well, “morning”. There wasn’t exactly a sun to set or rise in that terrible place. Still, he had slept, and now he was awake. That makes it morning, right?

It was early morning, as it turned out. He practically threw himself out of his bed a solid two hours before the Organization normally started stirring for their morning assignments, before the Dusks has crawled out of whatever in-between space they lived in to start cooking breakfast. (They were terrible cooks, but no one else wanted to do it.) Axel hadn’t slept well, and so here he was, taking a walk, trying to clear his head before he was sent out for work.

Axel hadn’t slept well for a long time.

Almost immediately, he knew he was being watched.

_So much for a peaceful morning walk,_ he thought to himself. _Well, you know what they say about traps. May as well spring ‘em._

So Axel made himself a good target, wandering slowly and predictably through the winding streets, purposefully leading himself to a dead-end alley. He stood looking at the brick wall in front of him and sighed. He stretched lackadaisically and popped his neck.

As if on cue, Axel heard the sound of feet hitting the ground behind him. A heavy, hard thud—too heavy to be a kid. _So not Xion_.

Axel frowned, and then turned. He was face-to-face with a purple sword shaped like a demonic wing, its tip just centimeters from his neck.

“Took ya long enough,” Axel said. “I have things to do this morning, you know.”

The black-hooded figure didn’t move.

“Xion,” the figure said. “Where is she?”

Axel put on his best predatory grin. “Riku, right? You sure you’re feeling okay, bud? Your voice sounds a little raspy.”

Riku’s grip on his sword tightened. Axel could hear the leather of his gloves squeal. “Tell me where she is, Axel.”

A beat passed.

“I know you’re worried about her, too,” Riku said.

Axel grimaced, his cool façade momentarily broken. “Worried? I’m a Nobody, remember? Can’t feel anything.”

To Riku’s eyes, he seemed wounded by his own denial. So he just stood there, quiet, his sword between them. He waited. He hoped.

Not for the first time, Axel rewarded him for that. “Listen… There was nothing I could have done to help,” Axel said. He looked aside and to the ground. “If I had tried to stop it, Xemnas would’ve just destroyed me.”

Riku lowered his sword, just a little, the tip now aimed square at Axel’s chest. “What happened?”

“Xion tried to storm the castle,” Axel said. “When she appeared, the Superior ordered all of us to stay out of her way.” He sighed. “So far as I can tell, she fought through a whole army of lesser Nobodies to get from the bottom of the castle to the top. She got all the way to the altar, and then she fought Xemnas.”

Axel paused, biting his lip as if he was trying to swallow down his own nerves. Riku waited for him to keep going.

“Xion lost,” Axel said. “Then Xemnas… he grabbed her, and—and he did _something_ to her. Not sure what, really. And he said something about her no longer being able to escape. Then, uh, he threw her off the altar.” He gestured toward the castle. “Into that big abyss under it.”

“How do you know all this?” Riku asked.

“I was hiding by the stairs, watching,” Axel said.

“Where do you think she went?”

“Well,” said Axel.” If this is the realm in between, and she got sent somewhere even darker than that…”

Riku understood. “She’s in the Realm of Darkness.”

He lowered his sword, and turned to walk away.

“You gonna go find her?” Axel asked.

“If I can,” Riku replied. He summoned a corridor of darkness, and walked toward it. Before stepping in, he paused, and turned over his shoulder to give the contrite Axel a final look.

“The Organization isn’t stupid,” Riku said. “Sooner or later, they’re going to realize you’re not fully on their side. Before that happens, you should probably find a new crowd to hang around with.”

Riku stepped through the portal and disappeared.

Axel sighed again, putting a hand over his face.

“Easy for you to say,” he muttered. “All my friends are missing or dead… Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

~*~

“Absolutely not.”

DiZ, most of his body covered in robes save for his thin, wry mouth, daintily sipped at a cup of tea. Riku sat across from him in what passed as the dining room in the Twilight Town mansion that DiZ had claimed as his own. It was a terrible dining room; the table in its center was broken. Still, Riku and DiZ met here regularly, discussing the Organization’s movements, planning next moves.

For a year, that had meant reconnaissance and guesswork, as the two tried to figure out what, precisely, the Organization wanted. Since Riku had returned to the Realm of Light in Castle Oblivion and reunited with Sora and his comatose friends, they hadn’t done much. Riku’s experience at Castle Oblivion, alongside DiZ’s insistence, was more than enough to convince him that they were bad guys. But for nearly a year they had done, so far as they could tell, very little. In fact, in some sense they seemed to have helped the worlds, taking care of some local Heartless problems, putting Roxas and Xion to work as exterminators.

What plans they were aware of involved Sora and his memories, and those plans had now come to a head. Sora’s power, and all of his memories, were now consolidated in one Keyblade wielder. Xion. And now she was lost in the dark.

Riku leaned back in his own chair, unsurprised by DiZ’s response. Travelling to the Realm of Darkness willingly was a dangerous idea. The last time Riku was there, he had barely survived. But even though it was only a few months ago, it felt like a lifetime had passed.

Riku said, “I didn’t come here to ask for permission.”

DiZ took another pull of his tea and frowned, a gesture that was all the more stark for how little of his face was visible. “It is a treacherous place. Even with the protection of your black coat, there is no easy way to navigate that realm, and no safe haven within it. Heartless will besiege you at every turn. And even should you succeed, there is no telling how long it will take. Time flows differently there. Years could pass without you even noticing. Decades, even.”

Riku looked away, scanning the dusty walls, weighing the risks in his mind. But there wasn’t any way around it. “I won’t leave my friend behind.”

“Do you mean Sora? Or the puppet?”

Riku ignored the question. “With my powers, I should be able to open a portal there. I can do this.”

“Perhaps,” DiZ said, draining his cup. “But the cost may be more than you are prepared to bear.”

“So be it.” Riku stood and swept his hood back over his face, hiding Ansem’s visage, or the look of resignation in his eyes, he wasn’t quite sure. Riku walked to the door and then paused, again, his hand loosely grasping the old, rusted doorknob.

“You sure know a lot about the Realm of Darkness,” Riku said. “And you still haven’t told me what you get out of this. What it is that you want.”

DiZ stared at his empty cup. “Revenge.”

Riku bristled like he had been struck. He opened the door, and, just before closing it, said, “Well I can’t help you with that.” The old man in the red bandages sighed, and stood to clean his tea set.

~*~

Riku spent the next day preparing, and trying to rest. He spent the early part of the day in bed with the intention of sleeping, though that amounted mostly to sitting above the covers, trying to get used to the feeling of his new skin. Everything hurt; the last few days had been a near-constant barrage of stress and bad news. Riku had barely slept during his vigil in the Dark City, and it’s not like he had been getting good rest before that. If he stopped to think about it, he would’ve realized he hadn’t had restful sleep since Destiny Islands. He preferred not to think about it.

There was a lot Riku preferred not to think about. The loss of Sora, and his subsequent failure to piece together his memories, ached in a way he couldn’t fully grasp. It was too big, a pain that reached into too many parts of himself. It was like a black hole: Riku was afraid if he looked into it too closely, it would suck him in.

For all his outward confidence, Riku new DiZ was right. The chances of getting Sora back at this point were small. Even if Riku found Xion, she might not ever be willing to rejoin Sora. And he couldn’t force her. Riku was becoming less convinced that it was right of him to ever try, and even then, he’d failed pretty spectacularly. Or Namine’s worst warnings could have come true, and Xion might have stuck around long enough to become something separate from Sora entirely, so separate that his memories couldn’t be separated from hers at all. If that happened, Sora was gone. Forever.

So Riku kept moving. He ate as much as he could, even though DiZ had told him he wouldn’t be needing food in the Realm of Darkness. He figured he might as well go in with all the strength he could muster. He practiced with his sword, and his dark powers, and he stretched the unfamiliar muscles of Ansem’s body until they started to feel almost like his own. He visited Namine, and sat with her in the cool repose of her white room, taking strength from his best friend’s memories adorning the wall.

He would keep moving, and he would keep focused on what he was going to do. He hadn’t been strong enough to help Sora or his Nobody when they needed him. So he was going to dive into the Realm of Darkness, and he was going to get stronger in those shadows. And when he found the strength he needed, he was going to use it to protect what mattered most. To protect the person who mattered most.

No matter what.

~*~

Dark power poured out of Riku’s heart. It was an unsettling feeling, like sinking into water both warm and cold at the same time. But he was used to it. He opened himself to his own darkness, and it flowed out of him, crackling like electricity on his skin, engulfing his body in a soft, blue glow. That was the trick of it; the darkness thrived on fear. Approach it without fear in your heart, and there’s nothing it can do to hurt you.

A dark corridor opened in the empty, blue room in which Riku stood. DiZ and Namine stood off to his right, near one of the exits, watching somberly. The corridor billowed like a curtain the color of charcoal, its darkness sweeping across the room.

Not good enough. A normal corridor wouldn’t take Riku where he needed to go. He focused, slowing his breathing, pulling more strength from his heart. The portal flexed, stretching, the darkness splitting outward like a suture tearing itself open. After a moment, it settled into a rounder portal, a glowing orb of black, purple, green, and red.

Namine watched with one hand gripping the opposite arm. She understood why Riku had to leave, but she didn’t want him to. Ever since Castle Oblivion, he had been consistently kind and protective toward her. No one else had ever treated her that way. And she wasn’t sure if he was ever going to come back.

Through her connection to Sora, she could sense Riku’s heart, his memories so tied up with his friend’s that both were like an open book to her. She could see, in her mind, just what Riku was seeing at this moment. The portal, now open, reminded him of the Keyhole in Hollow Bastion. One of the last things he had seen with his own eyes before his heart was ripped out of his body by Ansem. She could feel his shame, and his resolve, and his fractured hope.

“Take care of Sora,” Riku said, glancing from behind his hood at her and DiZ. “I’m counting on you to keep the Organization from finding them while I’m gone.”

“It will be done,” DiZ replied.

“Trust your heart,” Namine said. “It knows the way, and no darkness can overcome it.”

Riku nodded, and clenched his fist.

As Riku stepped out of the world, Namine reached through the broken chains of Sora’s memories, holding as many of them as she could in her mind. She reached out to all the hearts connected to Sora, in all the far-flung places they rested. She focused, and spoke to all of them at once. It was all she could do.

_Please, someone. Watch over my friends._

Then the portal closed, and Riku was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a transitional chapter, setting up a lot of dominos and justifying what comes next. The third chapter is already finished, so it should be up before too long. I'm going to try to hit an every other week update schedule if I can, so hit that subscribe button. 
> 
> Lore Notes: This version of Riku in Ansem's body acts more like Riku, not taking Ansem's name or anything like that. I chalk that up to Riku not feeling the need to hide behind that identity due to his guilt at forcing Roxas into a weird cyber mind control hellscape, and also to the fact that this Riku's memories are all intact. The way I read it, people didn't *forget* Sora and his friends until Namine started rearranging things. So, even with Xion missing, everyone's memories are right where they should be.


	3. The Bottomless Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion drowns in the dark, and Riku comes after.

Xion felt like she was drowning in other people's memories.

There once was a boy on an island, who wished for--

There was a girl in a lonely white room--

A boy lost in the dark--no, no, another boy, a long time ago, his heart torn apart--

She saw storm clouds, and roaring winds, and the violence of the sea. Her head was spinning. Everything hurt. Once, she had been incomplete, a figment of other people's imaginations, but now there was too much inside of her that wasn't even her, she was stuffed to bursting with memories and feelings and the weight of these boys and their tragic lives--

She wanted to scream, but every time she tried the voice came out as his.

Sora, you can't give up yet you don't forget sora you have to come back to me and smile happy faces don't riku you're not roxas you can trust me come on sora kairi's inside

me?

 _who are you and where did you get the keyblade_ fire, sparks

A fall. A real one, sudden, hard. Xion could feel a knot start to form under her bangs. _What? Who?_

Xion opened her eyes. She was lying on dusty rock, sprawled where she had, apparently, fell. She shook her head, brushed the dirt off her face, and staggered to standing. She looked around, and remembered where she was.

The sky above her was a black maelstrom, a slowly spinning storm of abyssal darkness. Beneath her was dead, lifeless earth. The air felt cool, and thick, and around her she could see only more earth, broken and separated by emerging rivulets of blue crystal. The ground was marred further by periodic openings into what looked like bottomless pits below. It was absolutely silent except for the sound of Xion's breathing.

Of course. This is where she was, where she had been. The Realm of Darkness. Nowhere at all.

Xion stretched her aching limbs. She wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious, or long she had been wandering in this terrible empty place. There weren't days to keep track of, and the only things she'd found in this world so far were Heartless and her own thoughts. It was hard to keep focused, in that kind of silence, and there was so much in her head and in the place where her heart should have been to distract her. It was easy to be drawn into that world, pulled into a dissociative fugue of other people's memories. She was losing time, and the only reason she didn't feel like she was losing herself, too, is because she wasn't sure she had a self to lose.

Xion was only certain of one thing: she had to keep moving. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she had a feeling if she stopped for too long the darkness would swallow her completely. And as appealing as that sounded, there was something inside of her that refused to give up even in a place like this.

When she finished stretching, she started walking. She flexed her fingers, felt the power of her Keyblades close to the surface. She forced herself to look at her feet. One step, then another, then another, in the direction she thought was forward.

For now, it was the best she could do.

~*~

_Secret Report #1_

_I spent the first night without Roxas on the beach. I listened to the roar of the waves as the tides came in and out._

_The Destiny Islands. I first found this world on accident, as part of a mission, and I fell in love with it immediately. The trees. The pure blue sky. The sea shells. I'm holding one in my hand right now._

_Now I know this world was Sora's, and Riku's, and Kairi's. Is anything about me truly mine?_

_I feel stable now. Looking in the water, I see my own face. Not his. Xemnas filled me so full of Sora's memories that I started to fall apart. That was his plan: he wanted to force me to absorb Roxas, so I would become a perfect replica of Sora for him to use._

_I thought I could fix everything if I just went away. Roxas would take my strength, and he would find his way back to where he belonged somehow. Namine would help him. She promised me. But the more we fought, the less I felt like myself. The more whatever Xemnas did to me broke my mind into pieces. I felt like I was floating over Twilight Town, watching the fight play out. Helpless._

_Then Roxas started falling, and there was nothing I could do._

_I know what everyone expects of me now. Xemnas wants to use me as a weapon. Riku and Namine think I should return to Sora, give myself up so he can be whole. I used to want that, too. I wanted to give back what I borrowed from him. It's not so simple anymore._

_I've been on this island for two days, now. It's time for me to go. I know what I have to do. I may not be real, but I've gotten strong. I'm going to do my best to set things right._

_Roxas, I'm sorry. I messed everything up. I can feel a part of you, sometimes, a warm glow where my heart should be._

_I'm coming to get the rest of you. I think I know where to find it._

_I made a grave out of seashells, right next to the beach. Just in case I don't make it back._

_\--Xion_

~*~

Sometimes, strange things happen when hearts travel between realms. In the liminal space between worlds, connections can be made that would be impossible otherwise. Hearts can reach through shadow and sleep, across time and space, to find each other in their moments of need. And sometimes, friends don't always recognize friends when they see them.

When Riku stepped through the portal to the Realm of Darkness, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, a blistering red sun stung his eyes. _What?_ He looked around frantically. He was in an open valley of dirt and rock. Canyons surrounded him, all hewn out of ancient brown stone. The earth was collapsing, cracked to pieces beneath him, as if dry heat had caused it to shrink and tear. There was power in the air, a presence invisible and potent.

For a second, Riku panicked. He reached into his heart with his mind, probing at the darkness there, sniffing for clues. _Did Ansem bring me here?_ But there was nothing. The Seeker of Darkness' soul hadn't stirred since Castle Oblivion. That monster was dead, and his power was orphaned. It was Riku's now.

 _So if Ansem didn't bring me here, how did I get here?_ He cast another look around. _And where is here, exactly?_

That's when he saw it, nestled between a loose formation of jagged boulders. A form, kneeling, its head and hands resting against an object gouged into the ground.

Riku approached slowly. With a breath of power, he drew Soul Eater from where it lived in his heart. He raised it halfway into a fighting stance, his feet far apart, each step taken with bent knee. _If this thing brought me here, I'm not taking any chances..._

As Riku drew closer to the figure, he noticed that it was wearing armor. The intricate set of bronze-and-crimson-colored plating covered every inch of the figure's crouching form, a helmet with two sharp bat-like ears covering its head. Riku also recognized the object behind which the figure was kneeling. It was a Keyblade. One Riku could almost swear he'd seen before.

The figure's armor, and its Keyblade, almost shimmered in the harsh sun, the only pristine objects in the arid wasteland.

Riku was about twenty feet from the figure when it began to stir. First, he heard words, speech that conjured itself out of nothingness. No voice, no movement. Just... words.

 _"Who are you?"_ Riku, somehow, knew the voice was a man's. _Have I...?_

The figure raised one leg, wedging his foot beneath his body. Then he pressed on the Keyblade beneath his hands with what seemed like a titanic force, as if shaking off hundreds of years of stillness in a gesture. He rose to both feet. A cape unfurled and spread from his shoulders to just beneath his knees.

_"That... face... Do I know that face?"_

_What?_ Riku reached with his free hand to his hair. His hood must have fallen off at some point during his travel through the darkness to wherever here was. Why didn't I notice?

 _"You... Xehanort."_ Riku sensed a threat in the words.

Riku's amber eyes narrowed. "That's not my name."

The figure wrapped his right hand around the Keyblade's grip and pulled. The weapon's head lifted from the earth with a sound like a small explosion. The weapon was almost as long as its wielder was tall. He hefted it to his side, testing its weight after a long sleep.

_"Don't... lie to me. Xehanort... XEHANORT!"_

The armored figure charged. His boots kicked up gravel as he ran.

Riku thought, _Oh, no._

The figure closed the distance between them before Riku could so much as brace himself. Not that it mattered; no amount of time could have prepared Riku for the sheer force of the figure's opening blow. The figure's Keyblade was dull, more bludgeon than sword, but it hit Riku with the force of a sledgehammer. It slammed into his torso at an angle, just above his stomach, the blow knocking the air out of Riku's lungs, tearing the air from Riku's chest, shearing cloth and skin and rib bone. It was agony.

Riku strangled out a groan as he went flying backward, skidding to a landing on his back, near where he had entered this world. Riku rolled onto his chest and tried to stand, one hand still gripping his sword. He got as far as his knees before his entire body started to shake, the pain blanking his mind beginning to turn into shock.

 _Not yet._ Riku raised his empty hand up in the air, his gloved fingers open like he was reaching for the sky. "Heal!" The light in his heart stretched through his arm and burst through his open hand, a shower of green stars that felt like a cool spring shower as they scattered over his body.

 _A little trick Mickey taught me after Castle Oblivion._ Riku was, even in this moment, a little bit pleased with himself. More than that, he was relieved he could still use light magic while wearing Ansem's skin.

Riku could feel his body sew itself back together in response to the healing magic, ribs slotting themselves back into place, skin reforming. It was a strange feeling, like the painful stretch of a growth spurt mixed with the itchiness of a healing scab. He didn't like it.

But it was better than dying.

_"Xehanort!"_

The figure was approaching again, walking at an even pace, confident.

"I told you," Riku shouted after him. "That's not my name. And it'll take more than one hit to finish me off."

Riku took a deep breath, centering himself. The figure sped up at about a dozen feet away, building toward another slamming strike, but this time Riku was ready for him. He exhaled fear, and he breathed in darkness, letting the power leak out from where it hid in his heart.

Purple and white energy blanketed Riku's body, casting him in a pale glow. The energy gathered around his left hand, pooling there, and he raised his right, the tip of Soul Eater aimed at the rapidly approaching figure. The darkness sharpened Riku's senses, filled his muscles. The world all of a sudden felt clearer, more vibrant. More alive.

With his dark-awakened eyes, Riku could see the figure's power, a shimmering aura of gold enveloping him. It was enormous. Almost suffocating. This wasn't going to be easy, but Riku wasn't afraid. Because his darkness? It was special. It didn't bring in fear.

Riku's darkness drove fear away.

The next time the figure struck, a second later, Riku blocked it, his sword clashing against the Keyblade with enough force to send sparks flying. Their respective powers--the enveloping aura of rage Riku could sense from the figure against Riku's deep well of darkness--clashed as well, billowing out invisibly from both of them, a shower of dirt and stone erupting from the two in all directions.

~*~

Trading blows, Riku and the armored knight tore the waste asunder. The knight's weight--the sheer, wild strength of each of his movements--did nothing to inhibit his speed, and he dashed around the battlefield, charging at Riku from flanking angles with enormous bursts of speed and momentum. Riku could just barely match him in force, but only for one or two strikes at a time. There was no going blow for blow with the knight, so Riku instead marshalled his own agility, rushing around the arena in bursts of oily black. He launched spells of dark power at the knight, fireballs and spinning blades and immense shockwaves of burning, shining hate.

This was the power Ansem gave Riku, the power he had learned to make his own. He could turn his worst self into a weapon. He lashed out at the knight with all his self-loathing, all his ruthless desperation to protect his friends. He made a weapon of his whole heart.

Yet the dark attacks didn't seem to slow the knight. If anything, they seemed to embolden him further, and the two circled their initial meeting place like comets cutting through the light of sunrise, their swords turning the dust into glass, the fire into shrapnel that singed Riku's coat. Slowly, as attack after attack merely seemed to make the knight angrier, Riku gave ground, and his muscles began to burn. His lungs ached.

_"XEHANORT!"_

_Why does he keep calling me that? And why is he so familiar?_

Once more, Keyblade hit Soul Eater, and Riku went flying back with enough force to crush the bones of anyone unaided by magic. He hit a rocky outcropping, and then went through it, his entire consciousness reduced for a moment to broken rock and the fire in his body, which felt increasingly distant, like a picture he couldn't quite identify.

No, he thought, pulling a breath into his lungs as he hurtled through the air, rising at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. _Not yet._ He had one more weapon to draw out.

Riku stretched out his hands and arms, and black electricity flowed from his body. It gathered around him, eating at his momentum, bringing him to a stop in midair. He floated there, looking down at the knight, and drew out Ansem's Guardian. It felt, to Riku, like a Heartless, down to the same, rancid stench, locked into a tiny cage inside his heart. Pulling it out was agony--like using your bare hands to remove one of your own ribs. But it obeyed, and it materialized behind him, its muscular, shadowflesh arms flexed and ready.

The knight leapt after Riku, and the Guardian phased through him, pouncing on its prey. The knight's Keyblade met the Guardian's hands in midair, and they were suspended there, struggling against each other, darkness against the Keyblade's light. Riku could feel the Guardian's muscles creaking, its entire being struggling against the knight--

\--and losing. _No,_ thought Riku. _No no no no no no no._ He gritted his teeth, contorting Ansem's smug face into a furious scowl as he poured all of his own strength into it, his power channeling through the Guardian's in a symbiotic funnel.

And yet it. Just. Kept. Giving. Ground. The Guardian slowly rising higher into the air, toward Riku. The knight pushing it. Invisible power screaming all around them. The entire world, shaking.

_"Xe... ha... nort. You will not... use me... for this!"_

_What?_

The Guardian gave completely, and the knight burst past it, rising into the air above Riku. He reached out his Keyblade, which began to transform in his hands. It grew, the blade and handguard ballooning until they were larger than the knight and Riku put together. Then the knight flipped it end over end, the blade resting over its shoulder.

An orb of sizzling light gathered at the base of the Keyblade, and the makeshift cannon fired. The light struck Riku square in the chest before he even knew it was happening.

The next thing Riku remembered, he was in a crater. Everything hurt. His thoughts were swirling molasses inside his head. For a second, his gaze caught the sun in the sky, and thought he was back on the islands, rudely awoken from a nap he shouldn't have been taking, the kind of oversight that Sora would never let him live down. Riku groaned, and focused his eyes again--

\--to see the knight, standing over him, Keyblade raised to deliver a killing blow.

And that's when Riku remembered. He took a deep, staggering breath, and spoke.

"I know you," he said. "You're the one I met as a kid."

The knight's Keyblade swung downward with a crushing velocity, the tip levelled directly for Riku's forehead.

An inch from Riku's skin, it stopped.

The knight stepped backward, staggering as if struck. The figure, despite covered entirely in armor, looked, in that moment, entirely vulnerable, as if he were a man who had just woken up from a bad dream and rushed out of bed in terror.

_"You. You're the one that I chose."_

He took a few steps more back away from Riku, as if signaling that he had ceased hostilities. Riku limply lifted his hand and casted another Cure spell, then exhaustedly crawled to his feet after his body stretched itself back into its proper place.

The knight waited for Riku to stand. When he was finished, he pointed his Keyblade at Riku, not as a threat, but as a demand. _"Why do you look like him?"_

Ansem? Did the knight somehow know Ansem? Is he responsible for whatever happened to him?

"I had to immerse myself in darkness," Riku said, trying with all his remaining strength not to avert his gaze from the knight. "To protect my friends."

_"And your Keyblade?"_

"Lost. I wasn't worthy of it." He paused. "I'm hoping to fix that." Now that Riku knew who he was talking to, he could hear hints of his voice in the words unfolding in his mind. Fragments. Echoes. Like the knight wasn't quite there.

Riku asked, "What happened to you?"

The knight lowered his Keyblade, and turned his head to the side, surveying the crags and valleys with an eyeless, metal stare.

_"I don't--hard to remember. So little of me. I'm just a piece. Can't even remember my own name. Barely hanging on."_

"I'm sorry," Riku said, taking a step closer to the knight. "I don't know it. You never told me."

 _"You. Came here. Friends."_ He was speaking in fragments now, as if holding onto words was getting harder. Riku had the urge to take his hand, but something about the idea filled him with shame. He had no right offering comfort to anyone. As if he was any better off.

_"I want. To help you. Why you're here. Supposed to."_

The knight stepped forward, hefting his Keyblade in both hands, one on the hilt and the other on the flat of the blade. He bent his knees, slightly, as he came toward Riku, holding the blade lengthwise out at Riku's eye level, like an offering. A gift.

_"Try again."_

Like before.

Riku nodded, understanding immediately what was being offered. He still didn't feel worthy. But he wouldn't argue when offered with something he needed.

"Strength," he said, as he touched the hilt of the blade, repeating a choice he had first made a decade ago. "To protect what matters."

 _"One more gift."_ Neither of them moved, and Riku felt something invisible pass between them. A connection. _"Power, to hold the darkness at bay."_

Riku and the knight were surrounded by the orange aura Riku had sensed during their fight. He felt thick chains of light encircle the both of them, binding the two men to each other and to themselves. The chains swirled, and tightened, and then dove directly into Riku's core.

It felt like taking a needle in the heart.

Riku wanted to scream, but he could barely stagger out a breath. The chains were everywhere, inside and out, all he could see or feel.

Everything went blank.

~*~

Riku woke up to the sound of the ocean. He yawned, like he'd just woken up from a cozy nap. For a second he thought he had somehow ended up on Destiny Islands, but it was cold. Too cold.

He sat up and looked around. The sky was dark, illuminated by a waxing moon, stretched over a peaceful beach. Banks of stone rose out of the water and stretched over the sea like swelling varicose veins. The water lapped at the shoreline. The whole place, Riku thought, felt at rest. Serene.

_This is the Realm of Darkness._

Riku stood, and that's when he felt the weight in his right hand. He looked, alarmed, to find his hand, of its own will, gripping Soul Eater tightly. Only it was diferent\--it had a handguard, now, made out of the shape of two wings, and a chain hung off of the very base of the hilt. A black-and-red heart charm was attached to the chain, and the top of the blade had a head stretching out from the back of it--a single white, feathered wing, outstretched. An angel, reaching for the dark sky.

Riku held the weapon up, examined it, swung it twice to test its weight.

"A Keyblade. So that wasn't a dream after all."

Something else was off. His voice was different. It wasn't Ansem's voice. It was--

Just a hair below frantic, Riku reached his left hand up to his face. He felt the contours of his skin, and then his hair, which was thick and messy, extending well past the shoulders. He shook his head, and loose strands of it fell over his face.

He walked to the beach, and knelt to try to see his reflection. He could make it out, just barely, a muddy portrait of a young islander. Sad eyes. Wild hair. A mouth that wanted to pretend it had fully forgotten how to smile. But a familiar face. Still, after all this time, himself.

"I'm me again." He stood, letting his Keyblade fade away in a flash of light. He turned from the beach and faced the barren expanse of the Realm of Darkness.

He could feel it, now, in his heart. A new presence. A hand, pulling the pieces of Ansem's presence back and holding them in place, in an isolated corner of Riku's being. A box. It felt like gritted teeth and pure willpower.

 _Power to hold the darkness back._ The chains. So this was what he meant.

Riku sighed, and scanned the black horizon. It was the first time he had looked upon the world with his own uncovered eyes in months. He let the sound of the tide wash over his mind, a cleansing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal stuff: Hello! Sorry for the long, long gap between chapter updates. As it turns out, I have depression, and summer is bad for that. And then I moved! So now I'm getting back to it. I'm a couple chapters ahead and hoping to keep to an every other week update schedule. We'll see. 
> 
> Okay, fic stuff!
> 
> So, this chapter includes a few interesting things that were a lot of fun to write. The first is the introduction of Secret Reports. Just like the games, these are found documents that will be distributed to the reader throughout the story, set in certain parts of the text where I think they'll be the most interesting or provocative. They'll be used to give insight into other parts of the story, give exposition, do foreshadowing, all sorts of fun stuff. Note that, while Secret Report #1 is included in this chapter, they won't always be doled out in order. Intrepid readers can organize them in chronological order if they wish, or I might release them that way after the fic is finished. 
> 
> The other note is that here I include a very strong and possibly odd divergence from canon with Riku meeting the Lingering Will on his way to the Realm of Darkness. This is a choice that lets me answer the question, "How did Riku get his Keyblade?" while also moving Riku's character development and his relationship to his dark powers where I want them to be. I always felt that KH2 fumbles this a bit and walks back some of Riku's character arc from Chain of Memories, and part of my interest in writing this fic is trying to approach that differently. I hope you like what I did!


	4. Another Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion languishes in the Realm of Darkness, and Riku follows after her.

_Secret Report #4_

_I keep wondering how long I_ _’ve been here, but DiZ was right—there’s no way to tell. Every moment stretches out like a piece of rubber, pulled from both ends. It’s thin, but it could go on forever._

_The Realm of Darkness isn_ _’t as bad as I was expecting. It’s serene. The darkness isn’t corrupted or cruel. It’s pure, simple. It feels like walking on the floor of the ocean. To my dark senses, it smells like sea water. If I didn’t have things to do, I might just stay here. It reminds me of home._

_Speaking of, I_ _’m not sure how I’m going to get out of here once I find Xion. I opened a path using Ansem’s powers. Powers that are now locked inside my heart, somewhere where I can’t easily reach. I’m grateful to be myself again, and it feels good to have a Keyblade in my hand. But I’m going to have to figure out another way to get us home._

_I don_ _’t know where Xion is. But I know what Sora would say. So I’m following my heart, and walking in the direction it points. I think I’m walking toward him. I can feel him guiding me, pulling me through the valleys and wastelands of this place, toward the part of himself that got away._

_Xion. Namine said she_ _’s Sora’s memories of Kairi, turned into her own person by the Organization. Being around her is confusing, like I’m seeing three different people at once. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her when I see her. She deserves better than she’s gotten. She deserves a chance to be her own person. But the worlds need Sora back. Don’t they?_

_I_ _’ve decided to name my Keyblade, by the way. The Way to Dawn. The dark power that will guide me to the light._

_\--Riku_

The Realm of Darkness was silent save for the din of combat. The empty valleys and untouched rock echoed with the crunch of footfalls, the rustling of moving fabric, the singsong hum of magic steel. The blank sky listened to the sharp intake of breath, the liquid hiss of Heartless moving and striking, and the ringing of spells entering reality from nowhere,  pushing aside the humid air.

From a raised ledge, Riku watched Xion battle the Heartless. She was impressive in action. When he had fought her in Beast's Castle, a lifetime ago, she had felt like a pale imitation of Sora. When they fought in The World That Never Was, Riku was too busy trying to stay alive to pay attention to her style. Now, though, he could still see shades of Sora in her stance. But she was her own fighter, now, a whirling dervish of Keyblades and ferocity, fighting with blinding speed and a palpable anger. If he didn't focus, he almost couldn't see her, she moved so fast. The Heartless crumbled before her, masses of shadow dissolving into nothing.

Riku tried to center himself, and leapt gracefully down from his ledge. _Here goes nothing_. He quietly began his approach.

When the Heartless all fell, Xion screamed, a wild, guttural sound. "Come on!" she shouted at the void around her. "Is that all you've got?"

"Having fun, Sora?" Riku walked toward Xion with the best smirk he could muster. It wasn't convincing.

Xion whirled around on her heels, her weapons raised confrontationally.

"That's not my name," Xion said.

"Sorry." Riku stopped his approach, watching Xion from beneath his silver hair.

"Why are you here?" Xion asked. She sneered. "You looking for another fight?"

"No. I'm here to bring you back." Riku raised his empty hands in front of his chest in a conciliatory gesture.

"Back?"

"To the Realm of Light."

Xion sighed, her body suddenly feeling unbearably heavy. She lowered her Keyblades. She was surprised to find herself almost happy to see Riku, and that relief burned through some of the anguish that had pushed her into near-relentless battle with the hordes of Heartless that called this place home. Some of it.

"Why? So I can go back to Sora?"

Riku gazed at the ground. He remembered the desperation with which he had tried to stop Xion from doing what she thought was right, and he was almost overcome with a wave of shame.

A silence hung in the air for a moment. Then Riku said, "The last time we talked, before--" He trailed off, unsure how to describe everything that had happened in such a short span of time.

"Before Roxas died."

"Yeah. You said you understood what you had to do. You _wanted_ to go back. What changed?"

Xion finally let her Keyblades fade away. "Do you remember the advice you gave me when we met on the islands?"

He nodded.

"You told me that I had to figure out what was best not just for myself, but for everyone," she said. "I thought that's what I was doing. I thought returning to where I came from was the right thing to do."

Xion clenched her hands together, like she was cradling something. "But when Roxas was gone, I realized that wasn't right. I--" She breathed, blinking back the heat of tears. "Losing Roxas _hurt_. Do you understand that? I don't even have a heart, and it _hurt._ "

Riku had no idea what to say. 

She said, "Roxas deserved to be his own person. None of this was his fault. He didn't even understand what was _going on_. And then I realized that all I've ever done, my entire existence, is cause other people harm."

"Xion, that's not--"

"I was created to gather hearts for the Organization. And I did. I gathered hearts, and I hurt my friends. Now Roxas is gone, and all those hearts are trapped. Don't you see, Riku? If I go back to Sora now, all I'll have ever accomplished is being Xemnas's puppet. I refuse to let that be what I leave behind."

"What do you think would happen to you," Riku asked, "if you went back to Sora?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll still exist, inside of him. Maybe Roxas and I will both be… complete. But either way, it'll be Sora who's forced to clean up my mess. I'm not okay with that."

Riku stepped closer to Xion. For a quiet, stretched-out moment, they just looked at each other.

Riku nodded. "So what are you going to do? If we get back to the Realm of Light?"

"I'm going to find a way to defeat the Organization. I'm going to stop Xemnas. And I'm going to free Kingdom Hearts."

Riku put his hand gently on her shoulder. "Alright. We'd better get going, then. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can get to work." Then he stepped past her and started walking away, toward a winding path that led to a series of cliffs hewn out of crystal.

Xion blinked. She wasn't sure what she had expected Riku to say. But it wasn't _that_. "Wait, what?" She turned after him. "You're going to help me?"

"Yeah.”

"But. Why?"

_It_ _’s what Sora would want me to do._

He shrugged, and kept walking. “You coming?”

Xion rushed to catch up.“Wait!” she said, catching her breath. “You know the way out of this world?”

“I used a lot of my dark power to come here. I don’t think I can open a portal back by myself. But darkness is constantly flowing through this place. You can feel it, can’t you?”

She could, and she told him as much. She was fairly certain all Nobodies were sensitive to the invisible movement of light and darkness through the worlds, though she couldn’t be sure. _I_ _’m not even a real Nobody, after all_.

“There are places in this world where that darkness gathers. If we follow that energy, and find one of those places, I think I can tap into it to open a corridor back to the Realm of Light.”

“You think?” Xion, now walking comfortably beside Riku, cocked an eyebrow.

“You have a better plan?”

She didn’t. “So you know where we’re going?”

“Yeah.” He pointed straight ahead, into the cliffs. “That way.”

She rolled her eyes. _Boys_.

 

~*~

 

Riku and Xion proceeded through the Realm of Darkness in relative silence, two moving bodies in a static world. Or at least it seemed static. The more time one spent in this empty place of crags and shadows, the more clear it became that it was teeming with something that, if not life, was at least a persuasive imitation. Currents of darkness ran like tributaries into a vast river somewhere in the distance. Heartless constantly flitted at the edge of visibility, fluttering wings and scraping claws in the sunless margins.

Inevitably, the Heartless came into contact with the two cloaked warriors and attacked. Riku wondered, as he summoned his Keyblade, whether they were even wanting to fight them. Perhaps these Heartless were just locals, minding their own business, doing whatever it was that dark creatures did in their natural habitat.

Xion drew her Keyblades and prepared to charge on the horde of Shadows and Neo Shadows blocking their path. “Is that a Keyblade?” she asked.

“Yeah. Needed something better than a sword to fight down here, I guess.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I wasn’t about to let you borrow mine again.”

She grinned, just a little, in that sneering battle-hungry way she had when Riku found her. It was a gesture that, like just about everything else she did, reminded him of Sora. He had seen Sora give him looks like that before they fought on the island, or raced, or all the big and little competitions they had engaged in as kids. It was the look of someone eager to prove themselves. Or maybe just eager to win.

Like in the Dark City above, the two fought as a complementary pair, Xion twirling through fast, sweeping slashes and Riku moving with a practiced, elegant precision. The Heartless barely stood a chance.

Neither of them would have admitted to the other how good it felt to fight together. How much like coming home.

In this way, through battle after battle, Riku and Xion made their way through the Realm of Darkness. They passed up a steep mountain of hardened sand, which led, impossibly, to a great plateau. They passed through the plateau, and at the end of it, a dark portal. On the other side of the portal, Riku and Xion found themselves traversing a petrified forest, walking a path of colorless cobbled stone.

“Is this still the Realm of Darkness?” asked Xion.

“I… don’t know,” Riku replied. “It certainly looks different. But I can still feel the darkness we’ve been following.” He looked up, at the black, starless abyss above them. “And the sky’s the same.”

Xion nodded. They kept walking, down a path nearly swallowed by the thin and lifeless trees, their branches reaching out like empty candelabra, or grasping hands. The stone path continued like a finger squeezing through the petrified forest’s entangled fists. Xion was struck by a sense of loneliness, the feeling of walking somewhere where no one had been for eons.

“Maybe this was a world taken by the Heartless,” she said.

“Could be. They were supposed to have been restored by Sora, but…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Nothing had turned out like it was supposed to. _Maybe nothing ever does_ , Xion couldn’t help but think.

Eventually, the forest receded, and beyond the treeline the unlikely duo came to a hill overlooking a city made out of the same featureless, rotted stone as the path they had been walking. It was a circle of crumbling, medieval buildings, homes and shops and churches with collapsed thatched roofs and missing doors. In the center of the town, there was a plaza, and above it a clock tower. At the clock tower’s apex a massive orb of darkness had latched itself onto the architecture like a tumor, and a pit of similar size and eminence stretched out from where a long-dry fountain stood in the middle of the plaza.

The whole structure, from pit to fountain to tower, was crawling with Heartless, thrumming like a hive.

“That’s…” Xion wasn’t sure what to say.

“That’s where we’re going,” Riku said.

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“If we get close to that pit, I think I can use the power to open a corridor. But the Heartless here, they feel different. Stronger. This won’t be easy.”

“I noticed,” she said, not exactly kindly, biting her bottom lip, eyes tracking down toward their goal. Once they descended the hill, it was mostly a straight shot to their objective, down a few center roads of the town. The groups of Heartless were pretty thin, except for near the hive itself. Not hard to avoid… until they were impossible to avoid.

Xion nodded, and pulled her Keyblades into her hands from whatever nowhere they lived in the rest of the time. “Alright,” she said.

Riku watched her, recognizing that tone in her voice from a childhood spent with Sora. That voice always meant one thing. If Riku closed his eyes, he knew he would see his friend, a determined smirk on his face, Keyblade hoisted over his shoulder. But that wasn’t the person standing in front of him. It was a girl he barely knew. The more time he spent with Xion, he found that fact both easier and harder to keep in mind.

“You have a plan?”

She nodded. She was more serious than Sora, definitely. More thoughtful. Bless his heart, but Sora never looked like someone who would read a book in his spare time. Xion, though. She’d been through so much in such a short time, and Riku could see how it weighed on her, how it made her eyes sharper, darker. When her lips quirked back, he saw Sora’s determination, but not his optimism. Instead, there was defiance. Anger. Maybe a little bit of hope.

Riku had been told that Nobodies didn’t have emotions, but looking at Xion, he knew it wasn’t that simple.

“Here’s what we do.” Xion crouched near the very edge of the hill and beckoned Riku to come with her. “We make a run for it. Once we get close, I’ll use my two Keyblades to cut a path through the Heartless, and you can keep back whatever I miss. We fight our way to the pit and then once we’re near it, I’ll cover you while you open a corridor. Can you do that?”

Riku nodded, a little taken aback at Xion’s sudden intensity. “I got it.”

Riku drew his own Keyblade, and the two got into position, her leading and him right behind, poised to slide down the hill and go ahead at a full spring.

“You ready?” Xion asked.

“No problem. Try to keep up.”

“A race? You’re on.”

Then she jumped, landing hard, and started to run.

 

~*~

 

The first part of the plan went perfectly. Xion and Riku dashed through the town, nimbly sprinting over the ancient stone. They dodged Heartless where they could, only fighting a handful of Shadows until they reached the center of town.

Then the Heartless were everywhere. Every step closer to the fountain, and the pit before it, was thick with danger, a clawing, writhing, furious mass of Neo Shadows that attacked with pure frenzy, throwing their bodies at the heroes as if to suffocate them. Xion roared and drew light to her Keyblades, launching into a series of spinning cuts that sent power off in all directions. Step by step, she pushed forward.

Riku was behind her, his Way to Dawn sparkling with purple fire as moved as quickly as he could, batting away the blanket of Neo Shadows trying to close the gap that Xion created. He launched Dark Firaga balls from his empty hand as quickly as he could generate them.

One step. After another. After another. Each step a dozen cuts, another deep reserve of the power Xion contained within her body spent. Each cut matched by an attempted scratch or bite from a Neo Shadow, tearing at Xion’s coat, leaving scrapes and shallow cuts on her neck and cheeks and arms.

Xion kept moving, and Riku followed. They had to; Xion had only just now found some little hope for the future. She wasn’t going to lose it so quickly.

They pushed until they reached the edge. Xion teetered on the crumbling lip of stone, the only foothold she had against the sea of shadow. Riku stood at her back, fighting the Heartless. They needed to switch—she needed to defend him. But there wasn’t space, and the onslaught wouldn’t slow down. Every Heartless they killed was replaced by three more.

“Xion, are you alright?” Riku shouted through clenched teeth.

“There’s too many of them!” She stared at the pit below them, which was teeming with even more of them, all crawling around a pool of darkness that seemed bottomless.

Riku took a half step back, pressing himself against Xion,  causing her to stumble forward, her balance barely held. He dared a look behind his shoulder, at her, at the darkness in front of them.

“Then jump!”

Xion tried to twist to look back at him. “What?”

“I said, jump!”

Launching one more Dark Firaga, Riku turned, grabbed Xion, and collapsed forward, pushing them both over the edge. They fell into the pit, into the pool of darkness. Then they fell through it, and they were gone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a whole lot to comment on in this chapter. Some angst, some foreshadowing, and some moments between Riku and Xion that I hope communicate their strange relationship well. I've already got the next two chapters written, so hopefully updates will happen on schedule--at least for a little while. If you dig it, please leave Kudos, comments, and share in your Kingdom Hearts fandom spaces. Thanks!


	5. Dive Out of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion and Riku return to the Realm of Light. A long-awaited meeting happens.

The first light of dawn snuck in between the closed curtains. A single finger of light reached from the window across the carpet and over the bed, slicing it into two down the middle. That was enough to wake Xion.

She yawned and rose, dressing in the plain schoolgirl clothes she wore under her black coat. A button-up white shirt, a pleated skirt, plain tennis shoes with messy laces. A blue tie that she didn’t bother putting back on. They were someone else’s clothes.

Dressed, she went to the curtain, rubbing her eyes as she glanced out the window. From the small room, her view was of a waterfall inching upward, its torrential downpour of water eternally locked in reverse. The sky was a blooming aura of purples and reds preparing to settle into a sedate velvet, a half-consciousness that would last the rest of the day. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was better than the darkness. At least there were stars in the sky, fading away as the sun completed its ascent.

Xion walked to the door, which was adjacent to the window, less than a foot away in the tiny room. She opened it, intending to head to the washroom down the hall, only to find a tray lying on the floor right outside. It had dry cereal, a bottle of milk, some bread and fruit. It had a note attached to it.

 _Come see me when you_ _’re ready. You know where to find me._

Riku. Xion wondered how early he had woken up. Something told her he didn’t sleep well.

Xion carried the tray to the small table opposite the door. She poured the cereal and ate, watching herself in the mirror someone had affixed to the wall. It was shiny, the brass contours around the frame clean and bright. It was new, whereas the rest of the room—the bookshelf, the bed, the desk, the chair she had draped her black coat over—were clearly old. Someone had put this here recently. Most likely for her. Maybe Riku thought a girl’s bedroom should have a mirror. Xion smirked a little at the thought.

When Xion looked in the mirror, a girl looked back at her. She wasn’t used to that. For so long, she had seen other faces in that reflection. Other people. Now, for better or worse, it was her. Xion.

Just Xion.

She studied the strange girl in the reflection. She had pale blue eyes and skin the color of a fresh, sandy beach. Her hair, once just a bit too long to be called a bob, had grown, and cascaded messily to nearly her shoulders at its longest point in the back. She brushed the black locks out of her face, sweeping her bangs to the side. The girl was frowning. She looked tired. Her food finished, Xion ran her gloveless fingers over the girl’s cheek. Her skin was smooth, soft. No oil or acne. Warm. Defiantly, bizarrely alive.

Xion stayed like that for a long time, just watching the girl in the mirror. Hoping to get to know her a little better before the day began.

She didn’t know what she thought of this girl. She had spent aimless eternities wandering and fighting in the void, wallowing in the emptiness. She had enjoyed it, in a way. Just being able to freely move and fight in the dark world around her, nothing except blades and bodies and the scattering smoke of dead Heartless. That’s what the Organization had had her do, in that before time; her existence was given value through the Keyblade’s power to cut through the shadows. Deep down, that logic still made sense to her.

The light drifting in through the half-opened window still kind of stung. It had been three days since she came back. The return trip was fuzzy. One moment, she and Riku were tumbling down into a pool of endless, powerful darkness, drifting through realities. It was oblivion, a dive out of the heart of one world and into the orbit of another. Eventually, the blur faded, and she was left lying in wet grass with nothing but a jumble of fading memories to hold onto. It felt like waking up and feeling the memories of a dream leave your head. She didn’t know what had happened in the return trip. But she knew where she was, the second she raised her eyes to look at the light fog drifting through verdant trees, the second she saw the orange sky through the leaves.

Twilight Town. They were back.

She sat there, Riku’s unconscious body lying beside her. Stretching her muscles, she found that she was suddenly exhausted, as if all the exertion of her time in the Realm of Darkness was striking her all at once. The only sound she heard for several minutes was the quiet, rhythmic sighs of Riku’s breath beside her. She probably should have been worried that he was still unconscious, but she was too dazed to really think.

She was back. Really, really back.

When the silence ended, it was cut by gentle footfalls. She turned toward them to see the man in red bandages, the one she had encountered briefly while visiting Namine, all those however-long-agos it was.

He approached with an air of absolute calm, his uncovered eye distantly scanning the forest and everything in it. The leaves, swaying without sound in the wind. The grass so green it almost hurt to look at. And Xion, staring back at him as he came.

“Ah,” he had said, when he stood above the girl and her companion. “You have finally returned.”

That was three days ago. In that time, the Realm of Light had proven itself strangely uncomfortable and foreign. There was a lack of pressure in the air, as if some heavy substance had been sucked out of it by a vacuum. It stung, somehow, on Xion’s skin. Walking around felt, sometimes, like trying to climb up a mountain that had suddenly been replaced by marshmallows. Reality itself gave too readily. When Xion tasted the air, her tongue itched.

 _Maybe I don_ _’t belong here anymore_ , she thought as she stared into her own somber eyes. _Maybe I should have stayed in the dark_.

She let the thought lie; she didn’t have an answer for it. And soon, when the sun crawled all the way up into its perch in the sky, she was going to have to start thinking about what to do next.

 

~*~

 

Three days had passed, but Riku was still groggy. At this point, he had decided to just ignore it. He had too much to do; his body would catch up.

He relished the quiet of the old mansion as he walked its halls. It was a peaceful, warm place. He had been here so recently, and yet had spent so long away. His time in the Realm of Darkness, his shifts between himself and Anxem, had left his personal history feeling like a blur.

 _Who am I, really_?

He felt the balance of darkness and light in the air around him, the comforting detente of power that marked this world as fully in between. And he felt his Keyblade, its presence humming gently next to his heart.

 _I_ _’m a friend, waiting in the dark._ For Sora, and for his other. So much of the rest felt jumbled. Did he deserve his Keyblade? Should he embrace the darkness inside himself, or reject it? And what would it say about him if he did embrace it? He had chosen, back in Castle Oblivion, to find the path in the darkness that led to the light. Holding one in each hand. But he still wasn’t sure if he could face the people or the places he left behind in such a state.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Too much time had already been lost. He had to keep moving. For everyone.

Riku entered DiZ’s laboratory without a knock. It wasn’t much of a laboratory, really—just a computer buzzing away, and a few devices, and a couple of closed doors. But that’s what DiZ insisted on calling it. And Riku didn’t have a reason to argue with him about it.

“Are you prepared to begin, then?” DiZ asked. He didn’t look up from his computer. He even continued typing in spurts, as Riku drew close. Whatever he was doing, he certainly felt it was important. Or maybe it was just his way of displaying power.

More and more, since Castle Oblivion, DiZ seemed to need that.

“I’m here. I’m guessing you have a lot to fill me in on.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You wasted fully a year searching for that puppet, and even now she refuses to return to where she belongs. It is time we moved forward along other routes.”

A year. That’s how long Riku and Xion had spent in the Realm of Darkness. The weight of it was still hitting Riku.

Instead of spending more time reeling at that, he sighed. “I’m not having this conversation about Xion with you again.”

“Indeed. It is pointless, both for us, and for the replica you cannot seem to best. She is what we have to work with, for now. We shall make do.”

Riku adjusted his blindfold, trying to figure out where in the room to look. He didn’t like this place. It was… it was too cold.

“So what happened while we were gone?”

“Both more and less than you may have expected,” DiZ said. “The Organization, so far as I can tell, was robbed of most of its weapons when you and Xion disappeared. With her gone, it had no more Keyblade wielders to utilize in its gathering of hearts. I do not believe that mission has made much progress in the intervening span of time.”

“So what have they been doing?”

“Keeping quiet. Keeping to the shadows. Planning their next moves, no doubt, and possibly trying to find a substitute Keyblade wielder to place their hopes on. Of course, now that Xion has returned, and you have manifested your own Keyblade, their actions will likely grow more overt and direct very soon.”

DiZ typed another command into his machine and the screen changed. On it appeared hearts, globes, and interweaving lines of connection between them. To the side, charts and graphs fluctuated in keeping with data that Riku couldn’t discern. It was, Riku realized, an illustration of the known worlds. “However, I have not been idle in your absence. I have created a system using a specially calibrated set of sensors to monitor the flow of power in the worlds. The balance of light, dark, and everything else that keeps them in motion, that allows them to continue existing. What I have found troubles me. My readings suggestion that Heartless and Nobodies continue to proliferate in increasing numbers on many worlds. Their presence has grown to the point of being destabilizing. I fear, if nothing is done, we are nearing a catastrophe on the order of magnitude of the one Sora narrowly prevented two years ago.”

Riku nodded. “What can we do?”

“I have pinpointed a handful of worlds that are particularly beset. I believe these worlds may be fulcrum points that could very well serve some unseen Organization purpose. I recommend that you and Xion visit them and investigate. Doing so may prove vital to the continuing order of the worlds. It may also reveal information about the Organization and what they have been doing. It is still my belief that they are the source of the imbalance currently plaguing the worlds. A means to defeat them must be found.”

“And what about Mickey? Have you seen him?”

“Only once, only briefly. It was months ago. He gave me this”—DiZ proffered an envelope from a pocket in his cavernous robes— “to give to you.”

Riku took it, and turned it over in his hands. A white envelope with a green seal, in the shape of Mickey’s distinctive head.

A letter.

 

~*~

 

Just as the day began to settle in, Xion was startled out of her reverie by a knock on the door.

It was Namine. The girl with blonde hair and Xion’s face walked tentatively into the room, her eyes scanning from wall to wall to wall, soaking it in with a series of studious glances.

“Hello, Xion. I thought I’d come see how you were doing.”

Xion smiled. Or tried to. She hadn’t really done it in a while. She was worried the gesture looked strange, or forced, but it was the best she could do. “Hi.”

Silence. An awkward shuffle. It was a tiny room, and neither of them were in the habit of having guests. After a back and forth maneuvering dance, Xion ended up on her bed and Namine in the chair by the table, the two watching each other. Xion drew her knee up to her chest, her eyes gazing at Namine behind her black hair. Uncertain, but not unkind.

“I’m not used to being out of the mansion much,” Namine said, a hint of an embarrassed smile on her face. “I know it’s not safe for me to go out. If DiZ knew I was here, he’d be furious.”

“What do you think of him? Of DiZ, I mean.”

Namine looked down at the unsightly green carpet. “I don’t know. He helps Riku, and he’s kept me and Sora safe. I’m not sure what he wants, though. He spends most of his time working at his computer, or in rooms he doesn’t let anyone into. I don’t think he even tells Riku what he’s doing.”

“I don’t think he likes us Nobodies,” Xion said. She let a bit of sharpness come into her voice, though her expression remained unchanged. “He was the one who found me and Riku when we came back. He asked me a bunch of questions. I think I heard him call me an ‘it.’”

Saying that caused the sound of Saix’s voice to pop up in Xion’s head. She gritted her teeth before slowly releasing them. Bad, bad, bad memories.

“He doesn’t understand us,” Namine said. “How someone can be here without…”

“Without really existing,” Xion finished. One of the peculiar facts of the nature of Xion’s existence was that, when around the right people, she had a knack of knowing what they were going to say before they said it.

“He thinks we’re just a problem to be solved.” Namine looked back up at Xion and smiled sheepishly.

“Well he doesn’t have to be so mean about it.”

More silence. Namine looked naked without her notebook and crayons, Xion thought. In her memories, she could see two versions of herself visiting with Namine, and never had she seen the girl without them. She seemed like she was drifting in and out of deep, painful thoughts. Xion felt a prodding urge to be her friend. She looked like she could use one.

“You were one of the first people who saw my face,” Xion said. “I never got a chance to thank you for that.”

Namine looked back at Xion, two pairs of nearly identical eyes staring into each other. “I’m glad. I think, now that you’ve absorbed all of Sora’s memories, everyone should be able to see your true face. Your form is… stable, I think. You’re like every other Nobody now, more or less.”

Xion wasn’t sure whether or not that was supposed to be good news. It was good to know, at least, that she didn’t have to worry about disappearing, or transforming. Or putting any of her friends in danger just by existing.

“Can you feel him?”

 _It_ _’s like she knows what I’m thinking_ , Xion thought. _Maybe she does._ Xion didn’t know the full extent of Namine’s powers over Sora and those connected to him. She suspected Namine didn’t know, either.

“I can feel Sora almost constantly,” Xion said. “I can feel Roxas, too, but only sometimes. He’s not like a presence—more like a weight. His memories are here, but they’re jumbled. With Sora, I mostly remember everything now like it happened to me. All the way through to when you put him to sleep. With Roxas, it’s just… flashes. Bits of feeling or sensation. Broken pieces.”

Xion’s felt heat rush into her eyes. “It wasn’t easy in the Realm of Darkness. But it’s gotten harder since I came back. Here, everything reminds me of them. I can’t escape it.”

“I’m so sorry. I wish…” Namine reached a hand out toward Xion, then thought better of it. “I wish I knew how to fix this for everyone.”

“Did you know he kept a journal?” Xion couldn’t keep the sudden tears away, and they rolled down her cheeks in a slow rhythm. “He kept track of every day in the Organization. All the time he spent with me, with Axel… and I can’t even remember where it is.”

Xion’s voice broke. “It was the only thing he owned, and I don’t even know what he did with it!”

She cried. Namine sat frozen, watching, uncertain how or if she should even try to comfort the girl. The nagging certainty that it was her fault that Xion was crying paralyzed her. If she hadn’t gone along with Marluxia. If she hadn’t made that stupid, impossible promise to Sora. If she hadn’t existed at all.

“Why am I crying?” Xion asked, her voice wavering as she struggled to wipe away the ongoing current of tears. “Nobodies aren’t even supposed to have feelings, are we?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry, too, by the way.”

Namine widened her eyes. “For what?”

Xion sniffled. “You made a promise to Sora, didn’t you? I’m the reason you can’t keep it.”

“I— Maybe I shouldn’t have made that promise. If I had understood about you and Roxas, I wouldn’t have been so quick to just—”

“I know.” Xion tried to smile again. This time, even with her face aching from crying, it felt a bit more natural. “Are you sure there’s no other way to wake Sora up?”

“I’ve thought about it. I remember, while Vexen was working on you, he made another replica—a replica of Riku. I was given copied versions of Riku’s memories that I stitched together inside him. But—Vexen made those copies using the power of Castle Oblivion. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know if it’s even possible to reproduce what he did, or if copied memories would even work. You’re able to hold Sora’s memories because of your connection to Sora’s heart. I don’t know what would happen to that connection if we tried to somehow copy those memories between the two of you. It could break.”

“Castle Oblivion…”

“I mentioned it to DiZ, once, when you and Riku were gone. He said it was too dangerous to go back.”

“He’s probably right. The Organization watches it. It’s somewhere they’d expect us to go.”

“But you’re going to fight the Organization, right? You and Riku?”

“That’s the plan. I’m not sure how, though… We can’t just attack the castle. We’re not strong enough to face all of them at once. We have to find some way to draw them out, make them want to fight us. Or else weaken them, somehow.” Xion shook her head, and put both her feet on the floor. She felt in control, thinking about this sort of thing. She’d spent a year hunting Heartless, doing reconnaissance, learning how to plan and fight. She didn’t know if she could beat the Organization. But she knew she was strong enough to try.

“Well, maybe afterward, you and I can go back to Castle Oblivion together.”

The girls locked eyes again. A warmth passed through Xion’s cheeks that for once had nothing to do with crying.

“I’d like that.”

“Good.” Namine let that sentiment linger in the air for a moment, then stood gingerly, like she was afraid if she moved too fast the world would turn sideways and buck her off. “I think I should be going, now. Before DiZ notices I’m gone.”

“Yeah.”

A Corridor of Darkness opened near the door.

“Wait!”

Namine stopped walking, and turned toward Xion, who quickly rose to her feet. She snagged her coat from the back of the chair and swept it over her shoulders. As she zipped it up, she noticed it was still warm from where Namine had leaned against it.

“Namine, do you think you could take me to see Sora?”

 

~*~

 

Sora slept in a translucent pod, its rounded edges made of pieces folded together like flower petals. Circuitry in neon green spiraled out from the pod at sharp angles. He didn’t move, or make any noise. Xion could barely see him breathing. He just floated in the pod, as if suspended in water. She knew him, immediately—the thick wildness of his hair, the warmth of his unmoving face. The look of placid peacefulness there. As if the boy had never had a bad dream in his life.

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Xion and Roxas took them all for him.

The room was… strange. The floor, walls, and ceiling were a dull off-white, and they seemed to stretch on forever in a sort of unseeable haze, like the whole room was saturated in a slightly luminescent fog. It reminded Xion of the voidspace that was Castle Oblivion, and for a moment she was dizzy, feeling as if she was standing in Castle Oblivion itself, a maze of corridors and steps stretching out behind her as she stared at… as she stared at—

— as she stared at himselfherself. Xion as Sora as Xion as

She stepped close to the pod and put a hand on the glass.

“Hello, Sora,” said Xion. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Namine watched, silent, from near the door. She tried her best to stay perfectly still so as to not make any sound or draw attention to herself. This seemed like a private moment.

“There are so many things I wish I could tell you,” Xion said. “I feel like I know you, almost better than I know myself. So many bad things have happened—there’s been so much pain—and I wish I could explain it to you. Help you make sense of everything. It took me a long time to figure out.”

For the second time that morning, Xion was crying.

“I promise I will, someday, if I can.”

She leaned closer, placing her forehead against the glass. As she continued to speak, her voice got lower, quieter. Namine had to strain to hear.

“But I really came here because I wanted to see you, and to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry because… I can’t wake you up yet. There’s some stuff I still have to do. So you and Donald and Goofy are going to have to stay here and sleep a little longer,” Xion said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Riku while you’re gone. I know sometimes he doesn’t realize how much he needs us. And I promise, when this is all over, I’ll come back here to wake you. Even if I have to give up myself to do it.”

Xion lifted her head up and looked up at Sora’s face, meeting a gaze that wasn’t there. She put on her best smile. “Okay?”

Then the girl in the black coat wiped her eyes and turned to leave. Namine gave her a warm look as she approached. Xion soaked it in, trying to breathe in the way the blonde girl seemed to radiate kindness. Namine understood what she was going through. She was maybe the only person who could.

“Thank you, Namine. Take care of him for me, okay?”

“Of course. That’s why I’m here.”

Xion reached out her hand to open a Corridor of Darkness. Namine raised her own hand, sheepishly reaching out toward Xion to get her attention. “Say, would you—would you like to go get some ice cream?”

Xion finished opening the dark portal and cast her eyes downward as she stepped past Namine toward it.

“No,” she said, suddenly distant. “Thank you.”

Then she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult but extremely rewarding to write. I love giving these characters moments to just think, and talk to each other, and try to understand how they got to where they are. 
> 
> I initially wrote this chapter and the next one as a single unit, but I decided to break them up when I saw how long they were getting. Thanks for reading! If you dug it, please, share it, and you can follow me on Twitter @juliemuncy23 if you really wanna.


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